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Officials say Amber Alerts issued under tight criteria

By Katina Caraganis , kcaraganis@sentinelandenterprise.com

Updated:
02/10/2014 07:25:54 AM EST

Traffic signs in Chelmsford alerted commuters of an Amber Alert recently. It was recalled when a 6-year-old girl from Fitchburg, Alize Whipple, was found in Shelby, N.C., with her non-custodial mother, Leanna Wilson. Sentinel & Enterprise/Ashley Green

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Law-enforcement officials say the decision to issue such an alert -- which interrupts regular TV and radio programming and is displayed on electronic highway signs -- comes down to whether a child is thought to be in danger of serious bodily harm, injury or death.

Nearly 11 years after President George W. Bush's signature made AMBER -- America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response -- a national program, some authorities wonder whether the system could use an update, and one local lawmaker believes reports of missing adults should go into a national database sooner.

The Amber Alert is named after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and murdered in Arlington, Texas, in 1986.

Three criteria must be met before an alert can be issued:

* A child, 17 or younger, has been abducted.

* The child is in danger of serious bodily harm, injury or death.

* There is enough descriptive enough information to believe that an Amber Alert may help locate the child.

Since the program began, Amber Alerts have saved 694 children, according to amberalert.gov.

Whether to issue an Amber Alert was a judgment call that local authorities had to consider three times recently:

* Jeremiah Oliver, 5, of Fitchburg has not been seen by friends or family since September, but was not reported missing to police until December.

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His mother, Elsa Oliver, and her boyfriend, Alberto Sierra, remain in prison for their alleged part in his disappearance and on charges they neglected or abused Oliver's three children. Because no information has been given by the family, and because so much time has passed, an Amber Alert was not issued. Authorities said it's unlikely Jeremiah is still alive.

* Last month, Alize Whipple, 6, was the subject of an Amber Alert when she went missing. Her mother, Leanna Wilson of Fitchburg, was told she would lose custody of her child. They were found at the home of a family member in North Carolina, and Wilson was arrested. In issuing the alert, police said they had reason to believe Wilson would harm her daughter.

* Caitlyn Dowd, 14, of Shirley, was returned to her family last week after being reported missing Jan. 30 when she didn't report to school.

A two-day investigation involved police officers from Shirley, Fitchburg, Leominster, Shrewsbury, Brockton, Worcester, Massachusetts State Police, State Fusion Center, and the Middlesex District Attorney's Office. She was found in the early morning hours of Feb. 1. An Amber Alert was not issued because police did not believe she was in danger.

Shirley Police Chief Greg Massak said as the investigation continued into Dowd's disappearance, it was clear she had not been abducted but rather left of her own free will.

"If a teenager runs away from home, there may be other circumstances surrounding that. What they look at is the kid was not abducted or taken at gunpoint by a stranger or other family member. If we did an Amber Alert for every kid who ran away, it would become second nature to people," Massak said, noting he believes people would stop paying attention to the alerts.

As of Jan. 1, 2013, 87,217 active missing-person entries were on file with the National Crime Information Center. Juveniles younger than 18 accounted for 32,335, or 36.9 percent of the records, while an additional 17.4 percent, or 15,141 of the files, were missing young adults between 18 and 20.

If a person reported missing is a child, a report is immediately filed with NCIC, but that is not the case with adults.

State Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, wants to change that.

Brewer was among six lawmakers who introduced a bill Jan. 18, 2013, called "An Act Relative to Missing Persons."

As proposed, the bill would require law-enforcement agencies in the commonwealth to accept, without delay, any report of a missing person, child or adult, regardless of the circumstances of available information.

Over the years, Brewer and other members of his office have advocated on behalf of the families of Holly Piirainen and Molly Bish, both of whom were abducted and killed.

He, along with former acting Gov. Jane Swift, worked to establish an Amber Alert system for child abductions in Massachusetts.

Piirainen was 7 when she was abducted in August 1990 near her grandparents' cottage in Sturbridge. Her remains were found in Brimfield by hunters two months later.

Bish, 16, was abducted on June 27, 2000, while she was working as a lifeguard at Comins Pond in Warren. Her remains were found June 9, 2003, 5 miles from her family home.

Neither murder has been solved.

Brewer said he became interested in this because both Bish and Piirainen were from his district.

"I learned a lot about missing children because they were my friends and they were in my district. FBI statistics will tell you that if an abducted person is not found within eight hours, 75 percent of them will be dead," he said.

He remembers when Bish went missing, saying it felt as though a tornado had ripped through his district.

"An Amber Alert is essentially the sirens ringing to warn you of an incoming tornado," he said. "It goes online, on televisions, and on the radio. Every police officer knows the plate number and type of car that may be involved."

While he said Amber Alerts are necessary in helping locate missing children, they should not be used lightly.

"It has to have a strong level of discipline. It has to be vetted out by the state police," he said.

"I've been personally touched by this issue. It has shaped my political career. Molly's picture is in my den and home and in both of my offices," he said.

Fitchburg police Sgt. Glenn Fossa said while he agrees the Amber Alert is a good program, it can be reworked to keep pace with the changing world.

"Essentially the Amber Alert is 10 years old or so. At that time, remember, cellphones were not as prevalent. The ability to get messaging with the new technologies we have were not as plentiful," he said. "As technology has emerged, it very well may heed the conversation of, 'does this have to be looked at? Does it have to be modified? Do the criteria still work?' A lot of thought and planning went into the original Amber Alert."

Whether to issue an Amber Alert varies case by case, Fossa said, and each needs to be evaluated on its own merits.

"I know they err on the side of caution, so it doesn't become crying wolf that at any given minute on any given day people are seeing these alerts," Fossa said. "It's a very difficult question to answer whether it should be modified, strengthened or weakened."

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